Amiel plays Cleopatra in casting Conrad Black as Dreyfus

Monday 11 August 2008 03.41 EDT
First published on Monday 11 August 2008 03.41 EDT

Barbara Amiel pulled no punches in her Sunday Times article yesterday in defence of her errant husband, Conrad Black, Conrad and I were betrayed. And she spared few from her wrath: media commentators, prosecution lawyers, appeal court judges, Henry Kissinger, Marie-Josée Kravis and, of course, his former sidekick, David Radler, "a man with the backbone of a jellyfish."

That was to be to be expected. More surprising, perhaps, was her casting of Black as a modern Alfred Dreyfus (and, most bizarrely of all, the Richard Gere character in the movie American Gigolo). In her terms, the Dreyfus comparison made sense because she slyly conceded that she was imitating Zola with her own version of "J'accuse!"

But, using everyone else's terms (meaning reality), it is clear that Black is no Dreyfus. His miserable money-making plots should not be mentioned in the same breath as the Dreyfus affair. I had thought that only Conrad was in denial. Now it's obvious that his wife is playing the role of Cleopatra (you know, the queen of denial).

She has misrepresented the prosecution's case, hurled accusations against other innocent Hollinger directors and attacked the institutional investor who first blew the whistle. Yet, beneath the bombast, she omits to mention the single enduring fact that cannot be denied: Black treated a public company like a private fiefdom.

He and Radler - who, at least had the grace to admit it - rooked investors while deceiving fellow directors and shareholders for their own personal gain. That is the beginning and end of it. Her attempt to portray Black as a naive innocent deserving of our sympathy because businessmen can't get a fair trial in the United States is risible.